No Words for This

The much-anticipated memoir by media personality Alison Mau

In my family, we never talked about the past...

Since the age of twelve, Alison Mau wanted to be a journalist just like her dad. A beer-swilling, straight-talking man who was rough around the edges but could quote passages of Hamlet at will, he taught Ali everything from rabbit-hunting to throwing a punch and crafting a sharp sentence. It didn't matter that he complained loudly of his sexless marriage and put down the women in their social circle—these were just a mark of the times, Ali thought.

Ali grew up in suburban Melbourne in the 1970s and got her start in journalism at The Warracknabeal Herald, where the entire reporting staff of the eight-page gazette was female. But from there, Ali would go on to work in some of the most infamous and patriarchal Australian newsrooms of the '80s and '90s, including the Herald Sun, and Australia's top TV news station, Channel 9, under the notorious John Sorrel. When romance took her to New Zealand, Ali made a glittering career for herself as New Zealand's media darling of the early noughties, one half of the country's most recognisable news power couple and going on to host shows such as Breakfast, Seven Sharp, Fair Go, and RadioLIVE.

Then one day, Ali's sister called her out of the blue for a conversation forty years in the making. In No Words for This, Ali recounts what happened when she reckoned with flashbacks of a buried past. She began to question her whole identity and the reason she became a journalist.

It set Ali on a new path for herself and for other survivors of sexual abuse. As the leading journalist for New Zealand's #MeToo movement, Ali was forced to ask the same questions so many others face: Am I strong enough to go through this? What does justice look like?

This is an inspiring, personal, and honest memoir about family, love, purpose, and rising from the ashes to rediscover yourself.

‘Writing this book scared me at times’, says Ali. ‘Those necessary decisions about what to include and how much to tell, seemed so huge. Delving into the really painful parts of my life had me snapping the laptop shut at times, and coming back when the adrenaline had died down a bit! In the end, the gentle encouragement of family and friends was everything. And as I wrote I could feel the hundreds of survivors who’ve brought their stories to me over the years, right there with me. The bravery they all showed made me think, maybe it’s time to tell mine.’